LIVE: Sarah Longwell AMA

Bulwark Takes

Ben Parker hosts an Ask Me Anything with Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell, navigating a wide array of topics ranging from Democratic oversight strategy to focus group psychology and her recent book tour. Longwell advises against impeaching

Key takeaways

• Longwell advises Democrats to avoid impeaching Trump but recommends pursuing impeachment against Pete Hegseth over the Iran war and RFK Jr. over measles policy failures.
• She argues that a Democratic House must pair oversight with popular economic reforms like raising the minimum wage and restoring rural Medicare/Medicaid to generate 2028 momentum.

Main topics

• Democratic oversight and impeachment strategy
• Focus group methodology and voter psychology

Notable quotes

"You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose."

Conclusion

Longwell's AMA delivers a pragmatic blueprint for Democratic messaging

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Ben Parker from The Bulwark. Welcome to the AMA, the Ask Me Anything with our publisher, our fearless leader, Sarah Longwell. Sarah, how are you? Ready to answer some questions. Speaker 2 (0:09) What's up, Ben? I don't know. We're like not evenly matched right now. I feel so much taller than you. Speaker 1 (0:15) Which is not what it's like in real life. I Speaker 2 (0:18) mean, it's not that much different in real life. Speaker 1 (0:21) Okay, we got a bunch of questions that people already submitted. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions on Substack. A couple of people sent theirs in through email. We might get to some live questions later. You did mention to me just a couple of minutes ago that you want more fun questions, questions that aren't necessarily about politics, but are about, you know, some fun stuff, some stuff Sarah likes. I Speaker 2 (0:41) just thought, you know, if we're going to do an Ask Me Anything, like I do talk about politics on the pods all day, every day. You know, it's about some stuff we like never talk about. Speaker 1 (0:50) Yeah, no, I think we should we should talk about. Stuff you never talk about, like, you know, Kenyan. Or, I don't know, cats. Okay, we have some good stuff. Let's go ahead and kick off with a question from Substack from Kim Z. We're going to start off with politics. Assume Dems take control of the House and start oversight. What do or don't they need to do to make sure this process highlights the incompetency and corruption of this administration but doesn't? trigger voters to rally around Republicans? I assume she means like swing voters here or feel defensive of previous votes that they've taken. What do you think about that? Speaker 2 (1:24) Love that question. And actually, JBL and I did some of this on the secret pod today where, look, I think that my biggest piece of advice is not to impeach Donald Trump, because that does create the rally around Trump effect. We've seen it now. like a lot of different times and I think Trump would love nothing more than to have an enemy, right? Something that he can really to create, get people back on his side, right? I think we should impeach Pete Hegseth. I think we should. And because that you can make about the Iran war, like you can make it like you dare Republicans. A vote for Pete Hegseth is a vote for this war. And so I think we should jam them up in some of the places where they're deeply unpopular. However, and this is really important. Speaker 2 (2:13) You got to also do some things that people want to see, too. I think because part of I don't have this fully fleshed out yet, but part of it is if you think about let's assume a Dem wins in 2028, the number of things that they will have to do. to try to help rebuild in a in sort of a post-Trump world. I think that there's a way that Democrats can get a jump on some of that, some kind of a reform package that includes a lot of popular economic things that Democrats do. Like this is sort of the moment Democrats are they've been living for this. Things like raising the minimum wage. Very popular right now. You know, like some of the populist economic things, restoring people's Medicare and Medicaid who have lost it in rural areas. Things that they can crow about. This is just very important. They need to focus on things that make people want more of it in 2028, not less of it. So when you say the top three things that I would do, I would impeach Hexeth over the war. I might do our boy over at DOJ. Like if we're going to, if we get to keep impeaching, if the first one is successful, you know, you go after, I'm sorry that I'm blanking on his name. Todd Blanche. Blanche, thank you. Do Blanche at DOJ over the Epstein files. Do you do Speaker 1 (3:26) RFK Jr.? Speaker 2 (3:27) Well, so I just, so with JVL and I, when we were talking about this, I was kind of like, I would love to do RFK over the measles. I think there's only, we have to see what the appetite is and how much we're really going to do. Cause I do think you need a reform package. in their 10 very popular economic things that democrats can can try and push through um that make people see them as the party that is thinking about their material well-being yeah Speaker 1 (3:54) i think the rfk thing is also something that you can accomplish just as well through positive legislation right some of these boards that he's fired all of or you know there's only the um expertise is hollowed out. You can say, well, we're introducing a law that'll put that all back and make sure you can't do that again. You don't necessarily need impeachment as much, but I don't know if that's right. Okay. Sarah B. says, I am fortunate enough to live in blue New York, but I grew up in Michigan, and I'm wondering how Abdul El-Sayed were governed if he's elected to the U.S. Senate. The evolution of AOC has been so interesting to watch. I believe that he might follow a similar trajectory. Thoughts? Speaker 2 (4:29) I mean, my thoughts are basically that outsiders, when they become insiders, have a tendency to shift, right? Because what they quickly see is that, you know, being sort of angry from the outside is easier than having to work the levers of government. And in a lot of ways, that's a good evolution to go through, right? It's good to sort of get in there and say, oh, okay, I've got to build public support for this thing that I said, and not just public support, but, you know, internal support from other senators, and I've got to figure out how to build coalitions. And I sort of think that is, that's democracy. And so it is a, watching AOC has been really interesting because she goes from somebody who, and I think she still has. Speaker 2 (5:13) pretty much roughly the same principles, but her understanding of the mechanisms of government now are so much more nuanced. And she's quite good actually at explaining to people what they are. And so I just think it causes you to sort of grow out of the part, right? It's just all that you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. Speaker 1 (5:33) A Speaker 2 (5:34) lot of times when you run for the first time, you don't even know what the prose are. Speaker 2 (5:40) I have seen some people that make them worse and other people that make them better. And so we'll see. But AOC, it's absolutely made better. Speaker 1 (5:49) Yeah, no, her evolution has been really interesting. We do have one question from YouTube that is a fun question. So we've done a little bit of vegetables. Time for some candy. I don't know. Jolchik or Jolchik says, what was your batting average in softball? Speaker 2 (6:04) I have no idea. You know what? Here's what I'll tell you about my softball career. Speaker 2 (6:10) The best player on our team played the same position as I did. So I mostly DH'd. I was a second baseman. I was often a backup second baseman, but I was, my hitting was always the best thing. And so I was a, I was a, I often was a cleanup or a designated hitter, but I don't remember what my batting average was. Speaker 1 (6:31) No, that's fun. I think this next one also counts as a fun question because I love the pulled back the curtain on the focus groups questions, and I know you do too. This person's first name is TP and last initial S. We're doing first grade style names here. So TPS asks, do you ever go back to people who were previously part of a focus group to measure change over time? Do we ever repeat the same people in the groups on purpose? Speaker 2 (6:59) We do. Although we don't do it that that often. Although often when I do it. So we went back. for example, to people who didn't vote for Kamala Harris or like people who we were leaners who then we knew like didn't vote. And we asked people who didn't vote, why not? Like why they ultimately couldn't get there. And these were people who were undecided who then didn't vote. So we do follow up, especially after an election where we've had interesting cohorts in the, we have in the past done things where we follow the same cohort over time. That is. Like we'll take, we took a group of undecided women in Pennsylvania and we had, we met with them kind of every other week or something up until the point of election. There were some downsides to that. Number one was that they, they developed a group, like an in-group relationship. Right. And so they got Speaker 1 (7:50) to Speaker 2 (7:50) know each other. Speaker 1 (7:51) Yeah. They Speaker 2 (7:51) got to know each other and they were, it was changing what the relationship of the whole thing was. They were enjoying seeing each other. They would tell stories and that was great, but it wasn't. giving us what we needed qualitatively to like understand. We could see that the dynamic was getting away from something that was really useful. Speaker 1 (8:11) This one is a pretty straight up question also from Substack about the book, about how to eat an elephant. Peabody J asks, what can each of us do personally to fight the right wing anger attainment industry? Speaker 2 (8:27) Um, This is a really hard thing, and I really struggle with this too. But... You can, like, this is in the book, to the extent that there is a... a place to end about sort of feeding the good wolf. Part of it is like, do not become them. This is my number one thing. you know, there's this Nietzschean quote, stare into the abyss and the abyss looks back at you. Like Trump wants to turn us all into monsters like him, right? He wants to bring out the worst versions of ourselves, the parts of us that hate and live in fear. And what I try to do is resist that. I fail. We all fail sometimes, but like over and over, I try to reinforce almost as a mantra, like. We don't want to be what they are. We are not trying to be a mirror image. I understand we want Democrats to fight harder. We want there to be a big, broad coalition that isn't at each other's throats so that you can sort of overwhelm the bad guys on this side. But you want to do it without. the same vitriol, without the lying, without all of the things that make MAGA so toxic and tear us apart as a country. You know, you want to fight lies with truth and you want to fight evil with goodness and like sometimes it's that basic and I try and I believe all of us should try to do that. Speaker 1 (9:53) I think that's right. And, you know, you're not going to convince anyone by screaming at them, I think is part of what we've learned. This is a question, speaking of screaming, from Michael H., who left it on Substack. This is a question that harkens back to the Rick Berman section of the book. What does a flags Democrat look like and sound like today? I've heard you talk about this a lot. like even just around the office, about which part of the FLAGS acronym people should use and when. He says, I would love to hear some examples of how Democrats should be using fear, love, anger, greed, and sympathy when crafting their narrative. Speaker 2 (10:26) Yeah. So this again is that, you know, the guy that I worked for when I was sort of coming up in communications world, and he and I, we disagreed on a lot, but like I really learned a lot. from him about how people communicate and about how it works. And he had one of these things that he always talked about was flags, that there were five dominant human emotions, fear, love, anger, greed, and sympathy. And this is, let's just take Trump. So I think that the mess, the way to think about messaging is always contrast, right? You want to say them bad, we good, right? Like, and John Ossoff does this. I feel like he really follows this pattern. When he gives his speeches, it's one of the reasons I'm so enamored with him. Like I joke about how he's been lifting weights and whatever, but he really does do this thing where he tells a story and he says, they have greed, their greed, right? They're corrupt. They're greedy. Your life is getting worse. And so he is saying, they have greed. You should have anger about their greed. And, you know, I think that. I think that whoever runs in 2028, I do think there should be somebody in the mix. There should be love. And the love is love of America, love of her people, love of wanting to make people's lives better. I think that Trump would do this. And I think we all found it pretty repellent. But he would be like, I love the poorly educated. You know, I love women. But people like to be told that. They're being prioritized. That's why America First, which has its roots in horribly racist sort of 1930s propaganda, is still so effective because it's saying to you, hey, Mr. and Mrs. American, I'm prioritizing you. And people like to be prioritized and they like to be loved and they like to be told that you're going to make their lives better. Like we even greed. Part of it is I don't think it is greedy for people to want to have. their material well-being improved, but that is part of what you're doing, right? You are saying to them, your life is going to get better. You will have more money. You will have a better job. You will have more upward mobility. Like, using people's anger at the elites, their love of something better, their fear of it getting worse for them. That is like, those are all things that you just, but think about people like, like having emotions and that you are trying to tap into them to reach them. And how can you pull out the best stuff? And, and cause Trump does it the other way. Trump takes fear and anger and weaponizes those all day long. How can I make. People feel fearful of their fellow countrymen. How can I make them angry and hateful at their fellow countrymen? And so you got to realize as a leader, you have the opportunity to do a lot of directional things. Where do you take, because you're going to make people fearful. That is just part of what you are doing as a politician. But what are you making them fearful of? Because if you're making them fearful of their fellow countrymen, that is divisive and bad. But if you're making them fearful, of what AI is going to do and then you are presenting the solution to that, that's good politics. Speaker 1 (13:58) Cool. I like that. Okay. We have one more question and then a special announcement. I didn't tease a special announcement. So if you're tuned in right now, you get to hear it. It's going to be exciting. But first, another question from Substack. Alicia P asks, I'm an academic librarian wondering if I could lead a book club with How to Eat an Elephant. I am not a communications professional. What questions or framing could you suggest to introduce this book? to non-Boltwork people? And do you know of any other groups that are starting book discussions with your book? Speaker 2 (14:30) I don't know. Here's one thing. I saw somebody sent this to me the other day. There is a guy who, so a bunch of people have done reviews. They'll do like these video reviews of the book. And so one thing I might encourage you to do is, obviously people love being in person, but you could start an online video Zoom conversation about it. But there's this guy who does an online review. He's a professor somewhere. And he does this incredibly thoughtful. earnest review of the book, but the whole time his cat keeps getting in front of the camera. And it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I got to share it because he was, he starts by being like, I'm sure she'll never see this. But I watched the whole thing being like, I love this guy and his cat. When it was such a thoughtful, such a thoughtful review. Anyway, I do think, I think people, I would love it if people were able to self-organize, especially in the Bulwark comments and things like that. There's a lot of. ways that this community can do that. Because I do think I have gotten a lot of this. It's the reason I did the AMA, that there's sort of an appetite for people who want to talk about the things in there. So, hey, Ben, also, if the chat, if people are asking hard questions or even mean ones, throw them at me. I'm not, I'm not, go ahead. I'll take them. Speaker 1 (15:41) We have, we have people who are putting, who are putting together a list for me. So I'll look for those. I'll look for, I'll look for some mean ones. But in the meantime, maybe they can throw some mean ones in there and highlight them for me. Thanks, guys. In the meantime. If people want to hear